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I’m afraid people only begin to compliment one on one’s youth when it is gone. But Hersey, to me, really does seem scarcely any older than she was in the days when I danced with her. She still dances, I believe.”
    “It will be nice to see Hersey,” said Mrs. Compline.
    “I don’t think I know a Hersey, do I?” This was the first time Chloris had spoken directly to Mrs. Compline. She was answered by Nicholas.
    “She’s a flame of Jonathan’s,” Nicholas said. “Lady Hersey Amblington.”
    “She’s my third cousin,” said Jonathan, sedately. “We are all rather attached to her.”
    “Oh,” said Nicholas, always to Chloris. “She’s a divine creature. I adore her.”
    Chloris began to talk to William.
    Mandrake thought that if anybody tried to bury any hatchets in the Compline armoury it would not be William. He decided that William was neither as vague nor as amiable as he seemed. Conversation went along briskly under Jonathan’s leadership with Mandrake himself as an able second, but it had a sort of substratum that was faintly antagonistic. When, inevitably, it turned to the war, William, with deceptive simplicity, related a story about an incident on patrol when a private soldier uttered some comic blasphemy on the subject of cushy jobs on the home front. Mrs. Compline immediately told Jonathan how few hours of sleep Nicholas managed to get and how hard he was worked. Nicholas himself spoke of pulling strings in order to get a transfer to active service. He had, he said, seen an important personage. “Unfortunately, though, I struck a bad moment. The gentleman was very liverish. I understand,” said Nicholas with one of his bright stares at Chloris, “that he has been crossed in love.”
    “No reason, surely,” said Chloris, “why he shouldn’t behave himself with comparative strangers.”
    Nicholas gave her the shadow of an ironical bow.
    Jonathan began an account of his own activities as chairman of the local evacuation committee and made such a droll affair of it that with every phrase his listeners’ guardedness seemed to relax. Mandrake, who had a certain astringent humour of his own, followed with a description of a member of the chorus who found himself in an ultra-modern play. Tea was announced and was carried through on the same cheerful note of comedy. “Good Lord,” Mandrake thought, “if he should bring it off after all!” He caught Jonathan’s eye and detected a glint of triumph.
    After tea Jonathan proposed a brisk walk and Mandrake, knowing his host shared his own loathing for this sort of exercise, grinned to himself. Jonathan was not going to risk another session in the drawing-room. With any luck there would be more arrivals while they were out and a new set of encounters would take place in the propitious atmosphere of sherry and cocktails. When they assembled in the hall Jonathan appeared in a sage-green Tyrolese cape. He looked a quaint enough figure — but Chloris Wynne, who had evidently decided to like her host, cried out in admiration, and Mandrake, who had decided to like Chloris Wynne, echoed her. At the last moment Jonathan remembered an important telephone message and asked Mandrake to see the walking party off. He flung his cape over Nicholas’ shoulders. It hung from his shoulder straps in heavy folds and turned him into a Ruritanian figure.
    “Magnificent, Nick,” said Jonathan, and Mandrake saw that Mrs. Compline and Chloris agreed with him. The cloak neatly emphasized the touch of bravura that seemed an essential ingredient of Nicholas’ character. They went out of doors into the cold twilight of late afternoon.
    “But,” said Dr. Hart in German, “it is an intolerable position for me — for
me
, do you understand?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Madame Lisse in English. “And please, Francis, do not speak in German. It is a habit of which you should break yourself.”
    “Why should I not speak in German? I am a naturalized Austrian.